Detroit Tigers’ defensive shift leads to weird footrace to third base

Boston Red Sox’s Xander Bogaerts beats the tag of Detroit Tigers relief pitcher Joe Nathan as he steals third during the ninth inning of a baseball game in Detroit, Saturday, June 7, 2014.
CARLOS OSIRIO — The Associated Press

DETROIT >> Call it complete indifference, rather than just defensive indifference.

Although, someone should probably let closer Joe Nathan in on the plan.

With a three-run lead in the ninth inning, and a runner on second base, the Detroit Tigers put on a radical shift against Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, moving third baseman Nick Castellanos into shallow right field.

“The truth is, we don’t care about that guy, and Papi, the odds of him hitting a ball are much greater to the right side,” manager Brad Ausmus said. “We just need to get outs, and make sure there’s not more baserunners.”

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With no one covering the bag at third, the Red Sox runner on second, Xander Bogaerts, took off as soon as Castellanos made it to the right-field grass.

Nathan, seeing the movement, took off on a beeline to tag him, and nearly won the footrace to the bag.

“It’s not something we necessarily have talked about. I just decided we needed to move him over there and if Bogaerts takes off, Bogaerts takes off. I didn’t care if Bogaerts ran around third and scored, quite frankly,” Ausmus said.

“But Joe saw him out of the corner of his eye — and really, if he’d have seen him a split-second sooner, recognized it a split-second earlier, he would’ve got him. But obviously he didn’t.”

The 6-foot-5 Nathan collided with Bogaerts at the bag, and appeared to push him off.

Bogaerts was ruled safe, and given a stolen base. A lot of times, in similar game situations, an advancing runner is not awarded a stolen base, given the defense’s indifference — but clearly Nathan was not indifferent. It would have been a great play had Nathan caught him. It would have been an irretrievably bad play had Bogaerts been tagged out, especially the way the rest of the inning played out.

Ausmus challenged the safe call on the field, but not really because he thought it would be overturned.

“Quite frankly, the challenge was because I wanted Joe to have the chance to get his breath back after chasing him down. I didn’t know if we’d get the play turned over or not, but I felt like Joe could’ve used a quick blow after chasing him.”

The call was upheld.

The 1:22 delay may or may not have helped.

Nathan got Ortiz to ground out into the shift, scoring Bogaerts from third. After two more singles, he got Stephen Drew to fly out to center field.

The closer was coming off one of his best outings Friday night, but gave up two — largely meaningless — runs in the Tigers’ 8-6 win. He’s still working through the struggles of the past week, and Ausmus wanted him to have the chance to work on things in a lower-leverage situation.

“Just wanted to get him an inning. We’re going to need Joe Nathan. Wanted to get him out there and throw some pitches, and kind of work through this. Threw more pitches than we wanted, obviously, but he got through it,” Ausmus said.

“Like I said, we need Joe Nathan to be our closer. He’ll work through this. I’m not concerned about him. He’s a professional. He and Jonesy (Jeff Jones) are looking at video, and talking to find any little mechanical flaw that could be the root cause of this. He will get it ironed out.

“Like I said, we need to get it ironed out.”

About the Author

Detroit Tigers beat writer for The Oakland Press in Pontiac, Michigan. Mowery has spent 18 years covering sports, from preps to pros. He’s been honored with more than 25 awards for writing. Reach the author at matt.mowery@oakpress.com
or follow Matthew B. on Twitter: @MatthewBMowery.